


One Day (Is Now and Forever)

by SimplexityJane



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canonical Character Death, Death in Childbirth, Gen, an experiment in what-if
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 14:41:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10993014
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SimplexityJane/pseuds/SimplexityJane
Summary: Rhaegar takes Lyanna to Dragonstone, not Dorne.





	One Day (Is Now and Forever)

**Author's Note:**

> There is probably a reason Rhaegar took Lyanna to Dorne (and left her without a maester or even a midwife), but if there is I haven't figured it out. 
> 
> I wrote this in an hour, so there are probably mistakes.

One day, a thousand ships would set forth under two royal banners. Upon one would be the three-headed dragon on its black field. On the second, a grey direwolf, red-eyed on a black banner. One day only two heads of the dragon would have survived the world and would ask a man to take on a terrible burden and fly a dragon into war with no protection save his own breath and his own strength of will. One day that man would say yes.

Today, Rhaella stared upon the woman before her – no, the _child_ , for all that she was showing with child herself – and she felt dread pool thick in the depths of her stomach.

 _He has gone mad_ , she thought. The girl was wearing Targaryen colors, red embroidery on a black dress, but her eyes were red-rimmed, and in the instant of recognition, those gray eyes burned with rage. It was hidden well, however, and Rhaella had to admire the Stark girl – Lyanna, she supposed she should call her. Her son would not have installed his mistress in Dragonstone, let alone with three Kingsguard to keep her safe. Rhaegar, her beloved boy, had gone mad and doomed them all.

“Your grace.” Lyanna Stark was so very young. Younger than Rhaella had been when her father betrothed her to her brother. The bitterness in her voice was tempered when she saw Viserys. He was hiding behind her skirts, afraid of this stranger.

(One day she would be the only person who could control him. One day the person showing a dragon how to be brave had been born a wolf and wore no crown.)

“No formality, please.” Rhaella met the girl’s eyes. “You are my gooddaughter, are you not?”

The girl’s pale face went red. She looked down and coughed before nodding.

“I didn’t think it would come to a war, your—” She bit her tongue, and Rhaella smiled. Earnestness was something she had not seen in such a long time. She would have liked this girl, had she married anyone else’s son.

“Rhaella,” she said. She touched Lyanna Stark’s hand and looked into her eyes. They were dark, like Valyrian steel. She was strong, young and hearty. Even if Rhaegar had gone mad, this girl had not. “And no one ever does. Has Maester Aeron treated you well?”

“He’s been kind to me. Everyone here has been so kind….”

“You are my son’s second wife, and this is his household. Of course they are kind to you. Come. We will sit and speak. Viserys, this is your sister Lyanna. She married your brother, and she is carrying your niece or nephew in her belly.”

“I thought Elia was my sister,” Viserys asked innocently. His brow furrowed. Rhaella laughed to cover the awkwardness that descended between the two women.

“You can have more than one sister, sweetling,” she said. Had he accepted it Rhaella would have picked Viserys up then, but he was just a bit too old for that. “Perhaps you will soon have _three_ sisters, including Elia.”

If Lyanna Stark was surprised that Rhaella was with child, she said nothing.

She was a quiet girl, Lyanna Stark. She had not always been so, Rhaella thought. She had once been fearless. But once they had all been fearless, and look where that had gotten them. Now she sat with her goodmother, ever quiet and dutiful. Sometimes, though, there was a glimpse of the girl she had once been. It was always in her rage when it showed, almost as hot as a dragon’s.

As Lyanna passed her fifth month and Rhaella her third, they learned that Rhaegar had been killed upon the banks of the Trident. Lyanna sat with a face of stone as the news was delivered to her, and Rhaella wondered through her own grief if she felt anything at all. She had run with her son, had been swept up in the romance of it all, but now her father and brother were dead, and she hated her husband.

(One day she would tell her son that he should not be like his father. He would listen.)

She found her curled up in what passed for a godswood on Dragonstone. Her eyes were red, and she was shaking. She wailed into Rhaella’s breast while she shushed her, and Rhaella’s heart felt like it could be obsidian itself. This girl had not caused this, no more than her brother had caused the war or his own death. This war was always going to happen, after Duskendale stole whatever sanity her brother had left to him.

Neither of them cried when news of the Sack of King’s Landing reached their ears. Instead Lyanna left the hall, and Rhaella pretended not to hear her being sick outside. She was numb now, to everything that had happened. Even Elia being dead, even her babes being murdered in their chambers, where they should have been _safe_ , did nothing to her. Her House was gone but for herself, her brother, and the boy she held in her arms less and less.

(One day a boy calling himself Aegon Targaryen would die, eaten by the dragon he thought to tame and twist against his mother. One day the undead Gregor Clegane would be burned, long after Tywin Lannister died on his throne of shit. One day, a woman who almost lost her face would look upon them and smile.)

She had delivered too many stillborn children to trust in the fruits of any womb.

“Maester Aeron says that my child refuses to settle,” Lyanna told her one day. “He will have to force it, and it might all be for naught if it flips again.” Her hands were shaking, but her eyes were clear. She would deliver soon. “Would it be better for us both to die like this than like they did?”

Rhaella set down her hoop and took Lyanna’s hands. The girl had seemed to withdraw into herself further and further, a shell around her. She trembled whenever anyone looked at her, and she curled protectively around her babe whenever anyone looked at her.

“No, it would not,” she said firmly. “Your child is your future. Not just the future of our House, but your very future. You will understand when you hold him in your arms. He will be your hope, and he will be our hope.”

“We have lost everything, Rhaella,” Lyanna Stark said, shaking her head. “He will be hunted to the ends of the earth for his father’s sake. _We_ will be hunted, simply for existing. They will kill us.”

“You are the blood of winter.” Rhaella sat back, glaring at Lyanna Stark. “You married a dragon, and dragons _kill_. What does winter do to the unwary? Why do we fear it even during summer? It kills. You are no proper lady. You will protect your child with fire and blood if it comes down to it.”

(One day Lyanna Stark would scream at an army and bring seasoned commanders to their knees. They married the dragons, and they rebelled against the lions. No one but a Stark could do after all, even if this one was a woman.)

She could see the life returning to her gooddaughter’s eyes. For a moment she had been ready to give up, to let the child take her life.  Now she would live, Rhaella was certain of it.

Jaehaerys Targaryen was born while the wind crashed waves against the shores of Dragonstone. It was not the worst storm in a lifetime, but it was close. This was the true beginning of this spring, Rhaella knew, and with the changing of the seasons came disastrous storms.

(One day a red priestess would look upon him and his royal aunt and be confused. Azor Ahai had been promised, but she would see the image shift: first to coal and steel, then to silver and amethyst. She would not understand until the twin swords found their way home, and the fire within the Valyrian steel rippled in their hands.)

Rhaella took her own crown and placed it upon the boy’s forehead.

“Jaehaerys Targaryen, third of his name,” she declared him. She took Viserys’s hand and led him to the rough-hewn crib where the boy lay. “He is your king and your kin. You will protect him all your life.”

(One day, Viserys would grow resentful of his nephew, who could inspire loyalty and love in the wildest of men by his manner, not his words. He would challenge him with live steel in the middle of the most sacred place of the Dothraki. His sister would not protest while her husband gave him a crown of gold, but Jaehaerys would. It would take six Dothraki to hold him back, and for years he would be angry with his most beloved family for this act.)

Lyanna smiled tiredly down at her son, and she handed the crown back to Rhaella.

“He will earn it,” she said.

They were spirited away from Dragonstone, and it was only Lyanna’s commands that brought the three Kingsguard along with them. They were grim-faced, even Ser Arthur, who had always managed a smile for them before. Ser Gerold was horribly seasick, so much so that Rhaella feared he would die of dehydration before the ship ever sank.

Jaehaerys screamed as the waves rocked the ship, and Lyanna held him close to her chest.

Rhaella knew there was too much blood even as she pushed more out of her. She bore it, for there was no other choice. Her gooddaughter held her hand and her son, and Rhaella knew that she was going to die.

“Promise me you’ll protect her,” she said. Lyanna did not hesitate to nod. “She will be your daughter. Promise me.”

“I promise on the old gods. They are the only ones I know.”

Rhaella smiled, already slipping away.

(One day, the first day Daenerys learned the meaning of courage, Viserys would yell at her, “She’s not your mother! You _killed_ our mother!” and Lyanna would take him by the shoulders and shake him.

“I am the only mother the two of you have, and you _will_ respect that!”

One day, she would take Daenerys by the shoulders and tell her that she did not have to do this. That Ser Oswell’s sellswords may just be enough to win them the throne. But only perhaps, and they all wanted to go home. And Daenerys would still be afraid of her brother's fury and say yes. 

One day, a man as small as most children would stand in front of two monarchs and look to the woman behind them. He would have a smile on his face.

“The Queen Mother, I presume,” he would say. “I met your brother, you know. He was a terribly dull fellow, but that’s no reason to execute someone.”

Lyanna would smile, and the energy in the room would go from stiflingly awkward to congenial.

It would be the beginning of an alliance that would save the world.)


End file.
